Designing Tessellated & Mosaic Floors for Hospitality Clients

Apr 09, 2020 /Olde English Tiles ™

With today's vast assortment of flooring materials to choose from, tailoring an original look that elevates your project from conventional to spectacular can be simultaneously an exciting and an intimidating prospect, but no matter what style you choose to express there is a mosaic or tessellated pattern to achieve it. Whether crisp, clean and modern, or richly patterned with traditional colours, these tiles are one of your greatest assets in formulating a truly distinctive look.

The Imperial (Bathrooms), Erskineville

One of the reasons tessellated and mosaic tiles continue to appeal to designers is that they are unashamedly what they are - not faux marble or terrazzo, faux timber or concrete - just colourful geometric patterned flooring. That's not to suggest that there's anything wrong with look-alike porcelain products. New manufacturing techniques have resulted in tiles of exceptional quality, nevertheless some architects are reluctant to use them because, at the end of the day, they are not the real thing. However, mosaic and tessellated tiles are, in a sense, pure ceramics - their beauty derives from the creative imagination of the designer who specifies them.

Designing a beautiful floor that incorporates tessellated or mosaic tiles is a guaranteed way to create a hospitality space with a unique and distinctive appearance. Olde English Tiles’ tessellated and mosaic tiles are incomparably versatile, be it the variety of patterns and colours available, or the myriad ways in which they can be employed.

Newtown Hotel, Newtown

With a palette of nearly 60 plain and speckled colours and 50 shapes, sizes & accessories, a designer can exercise his/her creative muscle in ways inconceivable with large format faux concrete or stone tiles. Would you, for example, choose one of Olde English's standard patterns - such as the Brighton - using only pastel shades or vibrant colours instead of a traditional 19th century palette, or perhaps a more complex pattern, like the Manchester, but realized in a single colour rather than the conventional spectrum of earthy tones? Perhaps you’d choose a pattern from our contemporary series - one which owes more to Escher than AWN Pugin & Gothic Revivalism?

There is nothing to stop you, however, from having the best of both worlds by combining mosaic or tessellated tiles with large format glazed porcelain, real stone or timber, as Karine Lewkowicz has done at Le Vrai brasserie in Milan, or Guru Projects at Esquire in the Queen Victoria Building, Sydney.

Le Vrai, Milan

Commercial budgets often will not stretch to installing a tessellated floor throughout a large venue. It could be that the size and character of the space doesn't lend itself to the boldness of a tessellated or mosaic floor. In such cases it may be more appropriate to consider the use of tessellated tiles more in the way of a rug than as wall-to-wall carpet, or as a painting than as wallpaper - by surrounding a focal area of tessellated tiles with large ‘faux-something’ glazed porcelain. One can readily imagine a large hospitality venue, or perhaps a food court, where a variety of multi-coloured tessellated panels delineating separate zones, were framed by neutral coloured glazed porcelain. By blending these tiles with stone, timber, terrazzo - inventively juxtaposing one material against the next, you can readily inject unique character into your hospitality venue.

The Imperial, Erskineville

Unlike many tile suppliers, the sales team at Olde English Tiles are well versed in the demands of customising tessellated patterns in project specific colour combinations. For nearly 40 years we have been working with designers and interior architects assisting them by bringing our specialist knowledge to bear on their commercial and hospitality projects. It is our ‘raison d’etre’, and a key component of our mission statement. Whether it’s a heritage pattern in traditional colours, or a modern interpretation of a period design, or something completely original, we look forward to working with you to bring your vision to life.

In the meantime, should you require further information, or if you’d like to request a sample please contact us.

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